Draw With Me
by Cizzymac
Summary: There are many adjectives that describe Keitaro Urashima: dim-witted, klutzy, perverted, star-crossed. But talented? One wouldn't know at first glance. But within the pages of his sketchbook lies the key to a new future beyond Tokyo University.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I own no part of Love Hina, but you already knew that, didn't you? It's not like Ken Akamatsu could really write in English this badly, amirite?

Author's Note: I've come to realize recently that I tend to stick awfully close to canon in most of my stories. I am unsure of why this is. Maybe I feel uncomfortable straying away from the beaten path? Or perhaps I fear wasting the precious free time of those reading my stories with something that might be considered uninteresting? Whatever it is, it's time to remedy this problem.

As John Cleese so famously put it: And now for something completely different.

* * *

_Draw With Me_

Prologue

Perched on the roof of Hinata Sou, Keitaro Urashima stared with lifeless eyes upon the coastal town of Hinata Onsen at the bottom of the hill, and the ocean beyond, wondering how in the world he could have been so blind, despite the thick glasses sitting crookedly on the bridge of his nose. But then again, those glasses were made to help him see well with his eyes, and offered nothing in matters of the heart. If there were such a device, however, he would have fought, stolen and killed to make such a thing his own. If anything, it would have at the very least saved him from his current predicament.

Hindsight, so they say, is twenty-twenty. Keitaro had heard of such a saying before, but he never truly understood what it meant until that fateful day two weeks prior. Oh, how blissfully naïve he had been, oblivious to the cruel card fate was about to play on him. Thinking he was surely on the way to turning the corner in his Godforsaken life, the terrible power of a few thoughtless words from another ignorant soul had wholly sundered his burgeoning lot in life.

"That girl you remember…couldn't be me," Naru Narusegawa had said so flippantly, shredding his heart to ribbons. And on top of that, she explained how she had made her own promise with some other guy two years ago to make it into Tokyo University. Keitaro had nothing at all to do with her. Her words seemed cruel to him, but how could he, in his right mind, blame her? It was his own fault for letting his self-admittedly overactive imagination get the better of him. What was he thinking, that a two-year-old could have the wherewithal to form such a precious pact with a boy thrice her age? Such nonsense. While the woman was frighteningly bright, he could not imagine her forming complete sentences at two-years-old such as the young girl from his memory did. Though her face was nothing but a blur in his mind, her words were etched deeply in his memory, and would likely never be forgotten.

Even worse, Naru's all-too-obvious revelation was given at the worst possible time: the second day of the Tokyo University entrance examination. A whole year's worth of study, no, three years, in fact, had led him to that moment. Just that morning, he was supremely confident that this would be the year that his hard work would bear fruit, and he would soon be a student at the most prestigious school in all of Japan. But now, sitting pitifully on the roof of his dormitory, he could not for the life of him remember anything about the tests he had taken that day.

His failure was a foregone conclusion. His tenants could have surmised the same when they saw his face when he and Naru returned from the testing facility that afternoon. He retreated to his room and locked himself inside for the rest of the night, and was a phantom living in his own property for the next two weeks, avoiding contact with anyone else as much as possible.

He climbed to the roof of the building on a daily basis, fooling himself with the excuse that he went there to think. More nonsense. There was nothing to think about. He was there to sulk, and avoid contact with the other residents while he did. And today, like every other day before, there he was again, cradling his legs to his chest, hugging himself like he wished to hug the girl from his memories. And whoever that girl was, it obviously was not the girl living in the room directly above his.

Fatigued from the aerial acrobatics display his brain was performing, Keitaro's eyelids began to feel as though they were tied to heavy stones dropped from a tall building. The rest of his body followed suit, and he fell backward, emitting a heavy sigh as his spine made contact with the roof tiles.

"What are you doing up here?" an all-too familiar voice asked the ronin seemingly out of nowhere, the source of the tomboyish voice much closer to him than he expected. Startled, he quickly glanced upwards towards the girl squatting down no more than two feet in front of him.

_White_, Keitaro's brain screamed, and he quickly averted his eyes, rolling to one side and curling up into a fetal position, sure as the sun he was about to get pummeled to the ends of the earth. _Why did she show up here now? Why can't she just leave me alone? And why does she insist on wearing such short skirts, giving me a plain-as-day view of her panties all the time? _"Nothing," he blurted out, unable to come up with anything to say of any substance.

"The results are getting posted today, so we should get going now," the object of Keitaro's affection, Naru Narusegawa, said.

Another shock to Keitaro's fragile heart. He had completely forgotten that today was the day the results for the Toudai examinations would be publicly posted outside of the university. "Why don't you head out, then? You don't need to worry about me," he replied somberly.

Naru chuckled and took a step in Keitaro's direction, and he responded by rolling away from her. "What are you saying, dummy? You need to look for your name too."

"There's no way I could have passed, so there's no need for me to go all the way out there to see that I've failed," Keitaro said, continuing to shuffle away from the girl that was trying to catch him like she were a cat trying to pounce on a bird.

"Come on, you're just being ridiculous. You can't know that unless you look for yourself, so let's go!" Naru protested, grabbing at Keitaro's shirt, but it slipped out of her grasp.

"Just go by yourself! I don't have anything to do with you, anyway!" Keitaro continued to roll across the roof, thanking his lucky stars that they were affixed tightly. If one of the tiles sprang loose, he would likely fall do his eventual doom. On the other hand, perhaps that would not be such a terrible thing.

"Don't be like this! I'm really nervous and I don't want to go by myself, so just come with me, already!" Naru yelled, finally snatching Keitaro firmly by the back hem of his shirt.

Keitaro gave up the fight now that the young woman had snared him. "You're number one in the nation, Narusegawa. What do you have to worry about?" he asked calmly, unable to find the wherewithal to turn and face her.

Naru loosed her death-grip on the landlord, but held on to the hem of his shirt just the same. "I'm…not that confident either," she admitted, though it pained her to say it to someone as pitiful as the two-time, and likely three-time, ronin.

And with those simple words, what was hazy instantly turned to crystal-like clarity. Regardless of the difference in their average scores, in that very moment, they were both sailing along in the same boat. The two shared the same path and their destination was one and the same. And regardless of his history of failure, there was something markedly different about this time around, and that difference was holding onto his shirt, begging him to not abandon her when she needed him most.

"Alright, I'll go," he stated softly.

* * *

Nearly three hours later, Keitaro was standing still as stone outside the front of Tokyo University, watching with some amusement as the woman he accompanied paced to and fro, a scowl painted on her face. And she was not the only one. Many of the hundreds of other potential _Toudai-seis _packed like sardines in the small posting courtyard were also bouncing about restlessly and grumbling about the length of the wait.

The towering white banners with the official test numbers and their owners who passed and qualified for admittance to the school, was to be posted an hour prior. However, due to unexplained circumstances, the posting was delayed with no timeframe or deadline. Keitaro could understand the crowd's impatience, but he also knew that bouncing off the walls was not going to do anyone any good. "Why don't you just relax? All you're doing is tiring yourself out," he said to his honey-haired tenant-slash-fellow test taker.

Naru stopped in her tracks and whirled around with breathtaking dexterity, a wild-eyed expression on her face as she glared at Keitaro. "Relax? How can you expect me to relax? This is the most important moment in my life, you know!"

Trying his best to keep the chuckles in his abdomen in check, Keitaro might have agreed with her if this were not the third time he was subjected to this seemingly never-ending moment of truth. Perhaps he had learned how to relax during the wait due to repetition, or perchance he was so certain of his failure that he simply lacked the will to care about the result in this particular instance.

"I know that, but it's not like wearing the soles off your shoes is going to make the results come any faster," Keitaro replied somberly.

Naru furrowed her brow at the man. It was not like him, a dunce, klutz and occasional pervert, to say something so sage. "What's eating you?" she asked, noting the look of indifference on his countenance.

Keitaro looked up and noticed some commotion coming from the main throng of the crowd. "Looks like it's starting," he said, nodding his head in that direction for Naru's benefit.

A group of uniformed volunteers exited one of the buildings carrying several large rolls of paper; so long, in fact, that it took two of the volunteers to carry each of them, and several wooden structures fabricated for the single purpose of displaying the results written on the paper rolls. With machine-like precision and quickness, the workers set up the wood structures in a long row, unrolled the papers and hammered them to the wooden boards.

"This is it," Naru exclaimed with both excitement and trepidation, clutching a fist to her chest. "We'll count to three and look together, alright?"

Keitaro really did not want to look. Confirming his worst fear for a third time, he did not know if he could handle it yet again. "My name isn't going to be there, I just know it."

"Chin up, Keitaro," Naru replied, nudging his cheek with her knuckle. "You won't know for sure unless you look, right?"

She was right. There was still a glimmer of hope. After that first day of exams, he felt extremely confident that he performed very well. Maybe, if fortune would smile upon him for once in his life, the results from those exams were enough to push him over the top. "Yeah, let's do it."

"Ready, set!"

And the pair raised their heads, scanning the boards for their exam numbers. Keitaro found his row first, and scanned downward from the top slowly, biting his lip in anticipation. And as luck would have it…

His name was not on the list. He let out the breath he did not realize he was holding and closed his eyes, feeling utterly defeated. Fortune had turned her back on him once more. Strangely enough, however, the sting of his failure did not pierce so deep this time around, considering the result was as he expected.

After another deep breath, he turned and scanned for Naru. His cursory glance coming up empty, he trudged through the horde of cheering, yelling, crying and pouting passers and failures alike, discovering the bespectacled girl looking intently at one of the boards. Something had caught her attention, whatever it was. Could she have possibly not been able to find her name? Impossible, he thought. If she failed, it had to be some sort of mistake.

He moved to her side, looking up at the board with her. "What's the verdict?" he asked.

"It's there," the girl murmured in reply.

"Say again?"

"I did it, Keitaro." She turned to him, a single tear of uninhibited joy rolling down her cheek. "I passed!"

* * *

A/N: And that's it for now. I realize this is more of a teaser than anything, but I wanted to share this with you all and try to get some feedback. Drop me a note and let me know if you'll be interested in an original story from me that is not a canon pairing. Thanks a lot for all you do, everyone. You're the best! C


	2. Chapter 1

Draw With Me

Chapter 1

"Congratulations, Narusegawa. Starting from today, you are a Toudai student," Keitaro managed to spit out, despite the pain from the fresh wound of his own failure to pass the exams. He smiled though it was hollow, a face put on to hide the fact he wanted nothing more than to crawl into a hole somewhere and never see the light of day ever again.

More than that, he faked his smile in order to not spoil Naru's moment. He had known better than anyone how hard she had worked to see her name inscribed on that poster. The eighteen-hour days of endless reading, note taking, drills and mock exams, forsaking anything closely resembling a social life just for one fleeting moment of accomplishment. And those sleepless nights and migraine headaches had at long last paid off. If there was one thing Keitaro did not want to do, it was to ruin that for her. After all, he had longed for the very same thing.

Unfortunately for Keitaro, his counterpart saw through that terribly fake smile of his almost instantly, and his heart sank when her beaming smile morphed into a frown. Naru knew without asking, and she spared him from the embarrassment of an open admission. "I'm sorry," she apologized, gazing down at Keitaro's shoes, scuffed and dirt-caked from months of wear. He should really think about getting himself some new shoes, she thought.

Keitaro shook his head, realizing he was doing the exact opposite of what he intended. He faked a laugh and did his best to sound cheerful. "Don't feel bad for me. This was to be expected, right? If I had to pick between the two of us, you should be the one to pass, anyhow."

Naru wanted to reply that she would have picked him, but she bit her tongue. Instead, she laughed softly while she and Keitaro made their way through the crowd away from the posting area. "This is pretty ironic, isn't it? I mean, shouldn't I be the one comforting you right now?"

Keitaro waved a hand and shrugged. "I'm used to it by now, I suppose."

The star-crossed couple made their way towards home, sitting in relative silence throughout the hour-long train ride back to Hinata Onsen. Seeing the five beaming faces waiting outside for them in the bitter cold of that winter evening as they crested the long stone staircase leading to the inn-turned-dormitory, the thought suddenly dawned on Keitaro…

_What do I do now?_

"About time you two got back," exclaimed Mitsune Konno, Hinata Sou's Kansai native and Keitaro's next-door neighbor, clutching her arms to her chest and dancing about like an eight-year-old girl waiting for her turn in the bathroom. "I've been freezing my tush off out here waiting for you two to get back."

"You say that as though you were the only one waiting for them, Kitsune-san," replied Motoko Aoyama smoothly, her demeanor and voice as cool as the weather. Turning her attention back to the returning couple, the kendo mistress and heir to Shinmeiryu added, "Welcome back."

"So how did it go?" exclaimed Kaolla Su as she nimbly leapt upon the shoulders of Motoko, making like a four-year-old girl getting a piggyback ride from her daddy.

Keitaro let out a sigh and nodded in Naru's direction, giving her deference to speak first. "Well, there's good news," Naru began, a small smile creeping upon her face.

"Congrats, Naru!" Kitsune squealed, running up to Naru and giving her a bear hug. The two best friends giggled and bounced up and down as they celebrated. The other women applauded Naru's efforts, and Keitaro followed suit.

After a couple of minutes, the din died down. Haruka Urashima, Keitaro's aunt and proprietor of the Hinata Teahouse and Café located near the base of the looming staircase between Hinata Sou and Hinata Onsen proper, turned everyone's attention to her nephew by asking, "And you, Keitaro?"

In what could be called Keitaro Urashima's signature move, performed whenever he was put on the spot in a tricky or embarrassing situation, his right hand found a home on the back of his neck. "Well," he began, searching for the right words to say. He looked down at Shinobu Maehara, the blue-haired unofficial chef of Hinata Sou. She was clutching her hands together, fingers interlaced, squeezing them so tightly that her knuckles were stark white. She looked at him intently with those blue puppy-dog eyes of hers. Upon seeing that, Keitaro's heart might have broken had it not already been in pieces.

Sorry, Shinobu-chan, it looks like I'm going to make you cry again. I hope you'll forgive me some time soon, he thought. His hand loosed from his neck and it dropped weakly back down to his side. "Not this time." He fought hard against hanging his head in shame. He did not want anyone's pity. He could only offer a simple apology. "Sorry, everyone."

"Bummer, man," Kitsune quipped off-the-cuff, while everyone else was stunned into silence. Shinobu looked like a statue, still clutching her hands together with all of her might, as though she did not hear what Keitaro had said at all. Or she was simply trapped in denial, unable to believe what she had heard.

"Yeah, you could say that again," Keitaro replied with a tone of disgust.

"Bummer, man," the fox stated again without missing a step, her inflection exactly the same as the first time she said it. It can be surprising how effective cheering a person up can be when that person really does not want to be cheered up.

Keitaro smiled wistfully, letting out a faintest of chuckles. He might have known that sly woman would take him literally. Kitsune moved over to Keitaro, wrapped an arm around his neck and gave him a hefty tug towards the inn. "Come on, I've got just the thing that'll cheer you up!"

Keitaro allowed himself to be dragged along while the remainder of the party followed them. "It's still in the middle of the day, Kitsune. I'm not going to drink any alcohol," the apartment manager said with absolution as Kitsune pulled him by the neck into his apartment complex.

"Great, more for me, then!" Kitsune exclaimed, ruffling Keitaro's hair as though he were a boy half his actual age.

Two hours and half a dozen ridiculously large bottles of cheap, room temperature rice wine later, better than half the household had drunk themselves into an alcohol-induced stupor and lounged lazily about the furniture in the massive foyer in the main building of the inn-turned-dormitory, chit-chatting about the results of the examinations.

Keitaro's inhibition to the offers of free alcohol lasted only until Naru told him, her voice already slurred after only her third shot, that she would be offended if he did not drink with the rest of them.

"What about Shinobu-chan and Su-chan?" Keitaro had asked.

"Well, they can have some too if they want!" Kitsune yelled, setting another pair of sake glasses pulled from a bag lying on the floor next to her seat upon the table.

Kitsune's actions, naturally, drew the ire of the eldest in the room. Seated cross-legged on one of the two armchairs, Haruka paused between sips from her own glass, tilted her head towards Kitsune and smoothly said, "Give either of those two anything and I'll slap you sober."

Wincing while she quickly hid the two extra glasses in her bag of tricks, Kitsune muttered, "Scary."

"That being said, Keitaro, you look like you need a few drinks," Haruka told him.

After his aunt's insistence, Kitsune slammed a full bottle directly in front of him. "All yours, kiddo!" That very same bottle now stood on the table with merely a third of its original contents.

"Three…fucking years, sorry!" Keitaro exclaimed, suddenly wary that he had cursed in front of a thirteen and fourteen year old girl, and raised a wobbly hand to his face and bowed his head apologetically in their direction. The young girls laughed him off then went right back to tinkering with Su's latest contraption.

"Three," he began again, feeling a burning anger rising to his face quickly dulled by the liquor coursing through his veins. "Three goddamn years I spent, gone just like that." He motioned with his hand as if dropping an imaginary pocket watch by the chain, complete with an appropriate sound effect. "Poof!"

"Well, at least Naru got in, am I right?" Kitsune rhetorically asked, cackling, giving her best friend a good slap on the back. The force of the impact nearly caused the drunken Toudai-sei to spill her drink in her lap. "If this were baseball, we'd be batting .500!"

"No, no, see," Keitaro said, waving his index finger in the air as he sat up close to the edge of his seat and put his glass back down on the table. Suppressing a hiccup, he said, "It's not .500, because I took the test and failed three times." He held up four fingers. "You've got to include those, too. So that's…" He looked dumbly at his four fingers, trying to count in his head. "Gah, I hate math so much!"

"It is one out of four," Motoko grumbled the answer. She felt more than a bit disgusted that the poor excuse for a man had drunken so much he could not even perform simple arithmetic.

"So .250, eh?" Kitsune said. "I suppose that isn't so great after all."

"Take me out of the equation, and Naru's batting a thousand all by herself," Keitaro said with a bitter laugh.

It was in that very moment that, perhaps for the first time, Keitaro realized that he could very well have dragged Naru down so far that she was lucky to have passed. And in the end, all those countless hours she spent tutoring him, when she should have been concentrating on her own work, were an utter waste.

He wanted to apologize to her, to tell her that he was grateful for everything that she did for him, to congratulate her for being accepted and wish her the best. Those words he longed to say escaped him as he stared at her beaming face. Though she was only a handful of steps apart from him, he felt as if she were miles away. He silently hoped that it was only the effects of the alcohol coursing through his blood.

Picking up the bottle and pouring himself yet another drink as carefully as his sake-addled body would allow, Keitaro decided if he was going to drown his sorrows, he had better not half-ass it. He picked up the newly filled glass and raised it over his head. "To Naru, and to Toudai!"

"Kampai," the tablemates shouted, raising their own glasses. In unison, they lowered their glasses to their mouths and emptied the contents in a single gulp.

The next thing Keitaro knew, he was lying on a futon with his face buried in a pillow, his glasses still on his face, sitting crooked on his nose. Blinking away the haze of unconsciousness, he rolled over onto his back. He stared at the familiar ceiling light in the dim light of dawn shining through the patio window. He had somehow made it to his room last night, though he had no idea how or when he ended up there.

For a fleeting moment, he mused that the entirety of the previous day was merely a dream, and that he did not know whether he had failed the entrance examination. However, the numbness in his mouth due to dehydration, as though his tongue had fallen victim to an attack from a swarm of bees, and the painful drumbeat in his skull, was sufficient proof to the contrary.

He struggled to rise to a seated position, fighting back the heavy nausea that caused him to dry heave. His hand rubbed against something wet on the futon, and he turned to see his pillow was drenched in the stain of what looked like a mixture of tears, mucus and saliva. He retched painfully at the sight, but managed to keep whatever stomach contents he had within his belly.

What the hell could have happened last night? Did he finally break down and start weeping like a little child in front of everyone? Or did this happen after he had collapsed onto his bed? Whatever the case, he hoped that of all people Naru did not see him like that. He surely made enough of a fool of himself already, though for the life of him he could not drum up any specific memories from the previous evening.

Keitaro would have liked nothing more than to lie back down onto his futon and sleep for another twenty hours, but the severe dehydration wracking his system and his soaked pillow, desperately needing to be laundered, forced him to remain awake. Looking at the pillow in disgust, he decided that his need for water was more pressing, he tossed it aside with a scoff in the general direction of where he kept all of his laundry.

He rose and walked to the door leading to the hallway; rudimentary movements under normal circumstances. However, for Keitaro, the span of five minutes passed as he worked up the gumption to stand and wobble with starts and stops to the door, fighting off the painful urge to vomit in the process. Once his equilibrium leveled out, he found it somewhat easier to move, and a few minutes later, he was down the stairs and walking, somewhat straight, into the kitchen.

"And the dead shall rise from their graves and walk among the living," a baritone, but obviously female voice, mocked Keitaro as he shuffled into the room, squinting against the sunlight shining relentlessly through the window.

Though the young man could not discern the owner of the voice by ear, he could have recognized those long, shapely legs dangling from the counter top next to the refrigerator anywhere. "What time is it?" he asked the shorthaired Kansai native as he made his way to the fridge and opened it, wincing in pain from even the dull light bulb illuminating the contents of the stainless steel box.

"Half past seven," Kitsune replied after glancing sideways at the clock positioned next to her. "I didn't expect you to be up so soon."

"Thirsty," came the landlord's hoarse reply as he removed a large jug of water from the fridge and set it down next to his tenant.

"I should say you are. You didn't pace yourself at all last night," Kitsune stated, watching the man wander aimlessly about the room with more than a little amusement. She knew based on experience that he was begging for this to happen from the outset the evening before. Alcohol with no food or drink would make a wreck out of even the steeliest of imbibers. And Keitaro was a lightweight at best. "You've gotta drink water with your booze if you don't want a terrible hangover," she added sagely.

The hung-over menace removed a glass from the cupboard on the opposite side of the room and walked back across to the source of his need wordlessly. When the man began to struggle to keep the jug balanced in his hands to pour himself a glass of water, Kitsune jumped off of the counter and grabbed his arms. "Why don't you sit down and let me take care of this for you?"

Looking up with glassy, lifeless eyes at the woman smiling softly at him, he could do naught but nod in reply and loosed his grip on the container. Grasping his shoulders with her hands, Kitsune drove Keitaro from behind through the swinging door back into the dining area. As the woman pulled a chair out from the table and pushed him down onto it, he turned to protest, but the woman had already vanished back through the portal.

Keitaro let out a long sigh and rested his head on the table, closing his eyes. He felt quite guilty that he required help to just get something to drink, but he appreciated Kitsune's help just the same. She owed him after all those times in the past he went out of his way to make sure she was taken care of in the same manner, so it was the least she could do, he figured.

Guilt and gratitude; perhaps, he thought, this was the very same feeling she experienced whenever the situation were reversed.

Before his clouded brain could ponder over the idea any further, the object of his thoughts reentered the room with a glass filled with water. Keitaro lifted his head from the table as the young woman laid the glass in front of him. "Oh, and here," Kitsune said, reaching into the pocket of her pantsuit and retrieving a pair of small white pills. "Take these. It'll help."

How he had not noticed before he could not be certain, but now that he had taken a good look at the curvaceous woman standing over him, Keitaro noticed she was dressed in a business suit. Such attire could be considered the antithesis of her entire outlook on life. "What's with the getup?" he inquired, taking the pills from her and popping them into his mouth without an ounce of trepidation.

"Got myself an interview for a column at some third-rate paper in town," Kitsune replied nonchalantly with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Nothing big."

While he took a good long pull from the glass to swallow and wash down the pills, Keitaro pondered over the meaning of Kitsune's words. While it sounded like she was playing off the interview as merely a minor detail, the fact that she had woken earlier than anyone else in the household, and even worse, dressed up like some corporate shill, belied her words.

It was far too early and his head hurt far too much to even make the attempt to play mental gymnastics with one as witty as her, so Keitaro decided against calling Kitsune's bluff. "I like that look on you," he said instead, instantly regretting his words. Whenever he complimented Kitsune, it usually only led to trouble.

"Oh, do you now?" Kitsune replied with a sultry tone, leaning over to place her hands on the table. If Keitaro dared to look, he would have had an eyeful of Kitsune's generous cleavage supported by a lacy black bra underneath her light blue blouse, but there was no need to look directly. His peripheral vision had seen quite enough.

Try as he might, it was impossible for Keitaro to hide the blood rushing to his face. Sitting at the table, he was able to at least cover up the blood rushing to another part of his body. "You're way too easy to tease, kiddo," the woman said as she stood upright and ruffled Keitaro's bed hair.

The apartment manager tried to ignore her by polishing off the remainder of the water in his glass. Kiddo, she said, despite the fact he was a full year older than she. The nickname annoyed him, but since there was no use arguing something ultimately pointless, never mind his pounding headache, he let it slide.

"Alright then, I need to scoot. Can't be late for this one," Kitsune said after looking at her wristwatch. She shuffled across the floor in her slippers, the scraping sound almost melodic in Keitaro's ears.

"Good luck, Kitsune," Keitaro deadpanned, giving the woman the best smile he could muster given the thumping in his head.

"Same to you. If I don't get this gig I'll likely be late with the rent again this month, after all." Kitsune replied with a toothy grin and a wink.

Keitaro chuckled, wondering how that would be any different than normal. "Be safe, alright?"

"Will do. See ya later, kiddo."

Kitsune was through the door and walking away before Keitaro could protest against the fox's nickname for him. A few short moments later, he heard the front door slide softly open and shut. The sound of Kitsune's heels clicking against the cobblestone in the front of the building slowly faded to silence.

Once more, the three-time ronin was left alone with his thoughts. It was a terrible idea, given the circumstances. He wanted nothing more than to crawl into a deep hole in some secluded corner of the earth and dream away the next few days. As a deep hole was not available, the best he could do was to return to his room and go back to sleep. At least then he would not need to think about anything.

When he returned to his room and lied down, though he feared the cogwheels in his brain would shackle him to consciousness, a peaceful sleep quickly claimed him.

Keitaro woke again in the early afternoon, this time of his own accord. True to her word, the medication Kitsune had given the landlord a few hours earlier had indeed helped tremendously. Though a dull ache remained, he no longer felt as though a red-hot steel poker had been unceremoniously thrust through both his temples.

In place of the crushing pain in his head was a pressing need for food. He had not eaten a proper meal for a full day to that point, and his brain was able to properly relay this message to his body now that the severe nausea from his hangover had faded.

He rose, made a quick pit stop to the bathroom to relieve nature's calling and wash up, and made his way down to the kitchen for the second time that day. Opening the refrigerator to peruse a light and quick meal, Keitaro happened upon a cellophane-wrapped plate set aside in its own little corner with a small yellow sticky note addressed to him affixed to the plastic.

_Urashima-sempai,_

_You were sound asleep when I made lunch and I didn't want to disturb you, so I left you some cucumber soup and some sandwiches. I hope you feel better!_

_Shinobu_

Next to the youngest member of his household's name was a small but cutely drawn picture of her namesake's smiling face. Keitaro instantly became a victim of its contagiousness as he pulled the carefully prepared food and meticulously wrapped plate from its perch in the fridge.

Despite the girl's age, Keitaro thought as he munched down on Shinobu's delicious, expertly crafted dish, she had a lot of skills. Cooking, chores, even drawing; there was nothing she could not do. Surely, he surmised, she was destined to make some poor fool of a man one of the luckiest persons to ever walk the face of the earth in due time.

With a full stomach, Keitaro felt much more clear-headed. As a consequence of his heightened awareness, he realized that it had been two days since he last bathed as a pungent odor wafted into his nostrils from his underarms as he washed up his used dishes and placed them back into the cabinets next to the range. He reeled from the smell, resolving to make cleaning himself his next priority.

Twenty minutes later, Keitaro sat idle in his personal, portable tub on the second story balcony, staring off at the tops of the trees waving gently in the afternoon breeze. "What am I going to do?" he asked aloud, the sound of his voice garbled as his mouth was submerged underneath the bath water.

Maybe it was time to pack up and head back home. Naru was right. Toudai was nothing more than a pipe dream; his "promise girl" nothing more than the ludicrous fantasy of a love-struck boy chasing after some illusory woman without a name or a face. What was the point of his being there? His job was thankless, his tenants borderline abusive, and the money nonexistent. At least if he went home he could get a proper job and save up some money to make a new start of things.

The idea seemed novel on the surface: a fresh beginning with no worries about promises, endless nights of studying, or being beholden to the whimsical fancies of half-crazy females. But still, one immutable fact remained. If he left now, it would only serve to reinforce the one weakness in his life that he wished to overcome most. How ironic it would be to obtain a fresh start by following the same old song-and-dance.

No. Running away was no longer an option in Keitaro's mind. He would sooner hang himself from the ceiling of his room than see his parents' smug, contemptuous glares as he begged to move back in with them. And his grandmother left the only thing she owned that she considered important in his care. Abandoning his responsibility to Hinata Sou would be a slap to the face to the one member of his family that actually treated him with some modicum of respect.

Well, that was not entirely accurate. There was another member of his family that, at the very minimum, considered him at least somewhat reliable. Haruka was the only one Keitaro felt he could truly speak to and be open and honest about his feelings. And it was in times like these when he needed her help the most. And for Keitaro, that settled it. If there was one person that could help him figure out what in the world to do, it was his aunt.

Energized with a new purpose, Keitaro leapt quickly from his makeshift bathtub, dried off and returned to his room. Once changed into some fresh clothes, he made his way downstairs and out of the building. He had yet to come across another of his tenants throughout the afternoon, so he locked the door behind him.

Keitaro let out a honking sneeze as he made his way down the seemingly endless staircase towards Haruka's teahouse café. Sniffling and rubbing his nose, he cast a scowl at the many cherry trees sending their blossoms whirling about him in the stiff ocean breeze. Spring might have been a happy time for many his age, but Keitaro absolutely detested it. For the last four years, it brought nothing but heartache and painful memories. His allergies only served to reinforce those dreadful feelings.

As he approached the entryway to his aunt's shop, his pace slowed as he heard the familiar voice of who was perhaps the last person he wanted to face coming from inside the shop. Upon reaching the door, he stopped completely and, bound by unavoidable curiosity, pressed his ear next to the portal.

"All I'm asking is that you don't say anything to him about it, alright?" Naru's muffled voice reached Keitaro's ears clearly. Whomever she was speaking to had her obviously worked up, as she sounded clearly annoyed. He shuffled a step closer to the door hinge. He would rather keep his skull intact should the door suddenly fly open.

"I got you, I got you," the object of Naru's annoyance replied. Keitaro might have guessed it was Kitsune, considering Naru would never dare raise her voice like that to his aunt if she valued her life. Kitsune sounded equally irritated, however. The pair had obviously been arguing or something for quite some time before he showed up. "And all I'm saying is that you should think about what I said."

"I'm leaving," Naru said loudly, and Keitaro retreated away from the door, hiding around the corner of the building.

Keitaro heard the door creak open, and he kept himself perfectly still, going so far as to hold his breath to keep from being discovered. "Be careful, alright?" he heard his aunt say as a pair of footsteps faded into the distance. Keitaro sat and waited an extra minute, waiting to hear the door creak shut again before revealing himself.

"How long do you plan on squatting over there like an idiot?"

Impossible, Keitaro thought. There was no way she could know he was there. However, no more than a second later, a shadow appeared above him. The moment he looked up, a paper fan slapped him directly across the cheek. "You might as well hide in plain sight, Keitaro."

The jig was up. The young man slowly slid from his dark corner, wearing as innocent a smile as he could muster. "I don't blame you though," Haruka said as she pulled a cigarette from the pocket of her apron and placed the filter between her lips. "Smart move, considering that girl is in a bit of a foul mood."

Keitaro took a few steps toward his aunt and placed his hands in the pockets of his denim pants. "What's her problem, anyway?" he asked. How could she be upset about anything, he wondered. She got exactly what she wanted. What was there to complain about?

"That's not really any of my business," Haruka said as she lit up and placed her lighter back into her pocket with her half-empty pack of smokes. She tilted her head towards the door of the café and added, "That one, on the other hand, might be able to shed some light on the subject."

Keitaro poked his head through the door and noticed Kitsune, wearing the same clothes as earlier that morning, sitting at the nearest table to the door, thumbing a teacup sitting in front of her. Her other hand was occupied in holding her chin as she gazed out a nearby window, a melancholy expression on her face. In all his time living in Hinata Onsen, he could honestly say he had never seen the fox-eyed vixen appear so downcast.

"It's impolite to stare, you know," Haruka said, exhaling a puff of nicotine from her lungs. With a swift kick in the rear, Haruka launched Keitaro into the café, fumbling and stumbling.

Keitaro regained his balance and righted himself. "What the heck, Aunt Haruka?" he barked as he turned back around.

Haruka turned her head and glanced sideways at Keitaro, giving him a glowering stare that could put Medusa to shame. "I'm sorry, what did you say?" she asked calmly.

Keitaro withered like a flower in a summer desert's heat. "N-nevermind, Haruka-san." He kicked off his shoes, flipping them towards the corner of the entryway with his feet.

"Looks like you two are having fun." Keitaro whirled back around at the sound of Kitsune's voice. The despondent look she wore only a moment ago had vanished as though it had never been, replaced with her normal half-smile. "Looks like my remedy worked pretty well after all, Keitaro."

"Yeah, it did. Thanks a lot," Keitaro replied.

Kitsune nodded her head and said, "Well, if you're here looking for Naru, you just missed her." She waved the back of her hand at the door behind Keitaro and gave a derisive snort.

Keitaro smirked. "What makes you think I'm here to see her? It's not like I follow her everywhere she goes, you know? I didn't even know she was here until you told me."

It must have been the most convincing lie the ronin had ever told as Kitsune responded with, "Oh well, probably better that you missed her anyway."

Keitaro sat down across from the young woman and folded his hands on the table. "Why do you say that?" he probed with surgical precision.

"She's a little miffed, and you know how she is when she's out of sorts. It's better to just stay away from her," Kitsune said before taking a sip of her tea. Placing the cup back down on the table, she added, "And don't bother asking, I'm not at liberty to say why, and I'm really not in the mood to talk about it."

Keitaro frowned at being so quickly thwarted. However, the gears in his head turned quickly, and he suddenly remembered something important. "Oh yeah, how was the interview?"

"Well," Kitsune began, then tilted her hand back and forth in the air, "It was okay, I suppose. I'm not too confident, but I think I stand a good chance."

"That's better than nothing, right?" Keitaro posited, answered with a simple shrug of Kitsune's shoulders as she took another sip of her tea. Kitsune turned her head to look back out of the window, and Keitaro followed suit, curious if there was anything specific she was looking for.

"The _sakura_ are particularly beautiful this year," Kitsune noted aloud.

"I hadn't noticed," Keitaro replied plainly.

A chuckle passed Kitsune's lips. "I suppose not. You feel like talking about it? Big Sis is all ears, you know?"

Keitaro snapped his head back towards the smiling fox and waggled his index finger in her direction, quickly pouncing on the opportunity he had missed earlier. "I'll have you know that I am older than you, so you shouldn't refer to yourself as my big sister."

Kitsune's smile turned crooked and she traced her finger along the edge of her teacup. "So you'd rather I be your _imouto_, is that it?" she asked, her voice smooth as molasses.

And into her trap he fell. Hiding the redness from his cheeks was for Keitaro as difficult as trying to hold back the tides. He turned his face away, looking out the window again. "I'm not sure what I should do now," he said softly in an attempt to change the subject.

"Who's to say you have to do anything?" Kitsune asked without missing so much as a single beat.

"What?" Keitaro asked, surprised by Kitsune's question so much that he sat up straight, no longer leaning on the table.

Kitsune leaned forward, holding an empty hand out towards Keitaro. "I think I understand where you're coming from here. By now, you've got to be sick and tired of this whole Toudai rigmarole. It's been three years, man. I don't know how you can handle it any more." Kitsune shook her head and laughed to emphasize her point.

Keitaro nodded his head unconsciously in response to Kitsune's words. She was right. He had placed an incredible burden on himself, and his monstrous efforts to that point still had yet to bear fruit.

"I can't say I rightly understand just what in the hell possessed you to try to do something that is probably impossible for you but, after all this time, why not just give yourself a break and not think about things for a while?"

The promise…Keitaro was in no mood to talk about it just then. He had shed enough tears over it last night. Not to mention his story would make for wonderful blackmail fodder for the conniving dervish sitting across from him.

"It's your own life, right? Why not try to live it for once, just to shake things up a bit?" Kitsune picked up her teacup and finished off the remainder, serving as a queue that her monologue had come to a conclusion.

Keitaro looked down at his empty hands, pondering for a moment over Kitsune's words. As though on queue, Haruka entered the café having finished her cigarette. "Care for some tea?" his aunt asked him as she passed the table he and Kitsune occupied, heading towards the rear.

Keitaro shook his head. "No, that's all right. I was just about head out," he said as he returned to his feet.

Haruka turned to face her nephew, her eyebrows raised the slightest of distances. Only the most astute observer could tell she was actually surprised to hear that. Usually, when Keitaro showed his face at the teashop, he was there for hours on end. Though Haruka enjoyed his company when business was slow, he could be a nuisance when she actually had things to do. "That was quick," came her simple reply.

"Yeah, sorry. I just remembered I haven't even gotten a start on my chores today, and I need to start them now so I'm not working halfway through the night," Keitaro explained, scratching idly at his arm.

"Oh, okay then. See you later," Haruka said, giving a short wave goodbye before turning on her heels and resuming her duties.

"She's right, you know. That really was a quick visit. Got a hot date later or something?" Kitsune asked Keitaro sarcastically as he turned back towards her.

Keitaro frowned at the woman looking at him with a sly grin. "Sure do. Her name is Floorboards. I'm going to give her a nice rub down with some wax tonight. Would you like to tag along and help? I promise you won't be a third wheel."

Kitsune laughed out loud at Keitaro's surprisingly sharp wit. "Yeah, I'm going to pass on that. But have fun with your girlfriend tonight. Let me know if she bails on you. I'll go out with you instead."

Keitaro blushed when the lovely young woman sitting in front of him gave him a wink. "O-okay. I, uh…I'm gonna go now."

Keitaro approached the door and slipped into his shoes when Kitsune said, "Catch you later, kiddo." He turned his head to the side and inhaled as if to reply. He paused for a moment before shaking his head and sighing loudly. One day, he thought, that girl was going to learn to stop treating him like her kid brother.

Hours later, his duties at long last complete, Keitaro entered his room and clicked the light switch on the wall, setting the solitary bulb hung from a cheap fixture alight. He was tired, achy, and sweaty as all hell, and wanted nothing more than to crawl into his futon and sleep.

He moved to his closet and dragged his futon out into the middle of the bare floor. He might have turned the light off right then and there, but, looking down at his soiled work clothes, he decided to change into his sleep attire first. "Good night," he breathed into the air, turned his light off and crawled into bed.

Though he was physically exhausted, Keitaro's mind was moving a mile per minute, and he could not quickly fall asleep. The ronin stared at the ceiling, following the sound of the footsteps in the room directly above him moving to and fro. Naru was obviously still awake, likely tidying up her room. It made sense, Keitaro thought, considering there was hardly any time within the last several weeks to do much about keeping up their study area.

After another 15 minutes of tossing and turning, listening to Naru's footsteps, and thinking about where his life was headed, Keitaro decided sleep would have to wait, and there was only one way to trip the circuit breaker in his mind to allow him some peace. He stood, moved to his desk, and turned on the desk lamp.

He pulled from within the middle drawer of the desk a sketchbook and a Rubbermaid box. Opening the box, he took out and placed above the sketchbook a set of art pencils of varying shapes and sizes. Assured everything was in order, Keitaro lifted his arms over his head, interlaced his fingers, and stretched.

This was the one place in his world where nothing else mattered. It was a place where any dream that came to his mind could be molded into reality. It could be beautiful, or haunting, or whatever else he fancied. There was no one in the world he crafted that could tell him that there was even a single thing beyond the limits of his imagination. And the most amazing part about it was if he did not like the world he created with his paper and pencils, he could simply toss it aside and build another.

His right hand moved swiftly, as though it belonged to another person. Lines were drawn with masterful precision, shading done with expert care. Within a matter of minutes, his drawing was complete. Sitting up in his chair, Keitaro looked down at the completed page: the front annex of Tokyo University.

He smiled down at the page, feeling as though for just the most fleeting of moments, that he truly had passed the examination, and he would soon be going to the only place that he had wanted to go for fifteen years. But in the span of his next breath, he understood that long-awaited dream was not to be.

A chuckle passed through Keitaro's lips as he tore the page out of his sketchbook and without a second look, crumpled the page into a ball and tossed it into the trash bin with the rest of his failed drawings.

* * *

Author's Note: I know it's been a while between releases, everyone. Life is...pretty insane right now. I want to bring you the best I have. I don't want to half-ass anything here. That being said, the next chapter will be out when it's ready. I can't say much more than that right now. Thanks again for taking some of your precious time to read my drabbles. Drop me a note via review or PM if you'd like.


	3. Chapter 2

Draw With Me

Chapter 2

The suns of many days rose and fell upon Hinata Onsen. The cherry blossom petals had long since ceased falling from their hosts, swept away from the landscape either by the coastal breeze or by the laborer's broom. The trees and grass were green, the weather was hot, and the cicadas buzzed loudly from their wooden perches. Every form of life was filled with hustle and bustle, and yet, the landlord of the town's prominent all-girls dormitory on the top of its highest hill remained with idle hands.

Not to say that Keitaro was not pulling his weight as manager. Quite the contrary, Hinata Sou had not looked so pristine since before its conversion from an inn to a dormitory. Freed from the bondage of endless study, he had ample time to complete his daily chores and spent his afternoons and evenings meandering about the complex, making small talk with his tenants, or scribbling absentmindedly in his sketchbook.

Though his mind had not been entirely made up on whether or not he would continue to pursue his promise from long ago, he had taken Kitsune's advise seriously, and tried not to think too much about the near future. In most cases, telling someone not to think about something was a surefire way to trigger such thoughts more intensely, but in Keitaro's case, he found the idea quite liberating, as though a tremendous weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and he could once again breathe easily.

Though his relationships with his tenants were mixed at best, Su was, well, Su. She loved to play with Keitaro. And by her definition, playing with him meant performing all sorts of borderline criminal experiments on his person and following him around the complex endlessly, even when he walked around for no reason at all. None of this was to mention her kicking him squarely in the face as hard as she could whenever she happened to be within earshot when he returned from the market. His relationship with the foreigner was, perhaps, one of the few that had not changed significantly.

One that did, on the other hand, was his relationship with Shinobu. The girl was quite distraught after learning of Keitaro's failure, and her reclusive behavior intensified to a level not seen since the new manager first arrived at Hinata Sou. He could understand why she had shut herself away from him and everyone else in the house. She looked up to him, and believed fervently in Naru's story that if he could somehow pass the test and enter Tokyo University, then his lie about being a Toudai student would no longer be. He let her down tremendously; he had become accustomed to doing so, but it pained him whenever the two occasionally crossed paths and she would not look him in the eye.

In regards to Motoko, Keitaro gave the swordswoman the widest berth possible. She did not think highly of him, and she still resented the fact that he was the landlord of Hinata Sou. Knowing this, as well as the fact that the kendo-ka had a short fuse, he decided the best course of action was to simply avoid her.

He discovered through trial and error that the young woman kept a rigid schedule, something he had expected from someone so well disciplined. From his estimation, she rose invariably at sunrise to train until Shinobu woke up to prepare breakfast. She then retired to change into her school uniform, ate breakfast, and left for school before either of the other two middle-schoolers. Oddly enough, she was the last to return home after school, likely because of kendo club, Keitaro surmised. She went to her room, changed, and immediately began to train until dinner. With this wealth of information, it was effortless for Keitaro to remain out of her way.

And while he tried to remain outside the bounds of the radar of one of his tenants, he longed to remain within the range of another's. He knew and understood well that Naru was not the long-lost woman he forged that unforgettable promise with so long ago, and yet he could not shake her from his thoughts. If anything, he had grown to admire her even more ever since the wheel of fate turned them in separate directions.

There was something about her being a student in a prestigious college that seemed to bring out the best in her, so Keitaro thought. She became much more friendly and cheerful, and she pounded on him for his peeking accidents much less frequently, although she still gave him a good tongue lashing for his efforts. He had always thought her beautiful, but the way she wore her clothing and makeup lately had made her look more mature, and even a little sexy, though he dared not mention that to her face lest he incur the young woman's fury.

With all of this newfound free time on Keitaro's hands, he made it his mission to try to ask Naru out on a date, and not just as friends, though he quickly discovered a major hurdle in this endeavor. With Naru's course load and Keitaro's work schedule, he could hardly ever catch the woman both alone and available for conversation. When she was alone, she was doing homework or chores. When she wasn't doing homework or chores, she was hanging out with Kitsune or one of the other tenants. When she was available to talk, he was too busy taking care of things around the inn.

After weeks of starts on stops on the front of his love life, today would be different.

* * *

"What's eating you, kiddo?" Kitsune asked after peering over the top of her fashion magazine and noticing an obviously flustered Keitaro pacing about the entryway, scratching his head such vigor she thought he was trying to rip his scalp from his skull.

"I'm gonna do it today, for sure," Keitaro mumbled in reply, giving Kitsune a double take when he realized what she had called him yet again. "And would you stop calling me that, already?"

"Nope!" Kitsune riposted with a cheeky grin. She sat up in her seat on the sofa and placed her magazine on the coffee table. What she was watching right now was much more entertaining than reading the latest celebrity gossip. "What are you going to do for sure, anyway?"

Like an animal caught in a snare, Keitaro froze in place. After a few seconds of silence, he said, "Oh, nothing. Nothing at all, actually."

The manager's nervous laugh was about as effective at hiding his lie as telling the truth outright, a fact not lost on Kitsune, who obviously had a superior wit. "That's interesting. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were waiting for someone to come home." Kitsune's honeyed voice dripped with sugary, but poisonous venom.

She knew something was up since the week before when she noticed Keitaro trying to work up the courage to talk to Naru after dinner. His mouth was half opened, reaching out in Naru's direction when she swung open the door to the kitchen to get a glass for her fresh bottle of warm sake. He failed to notice that she had seen him, and she thought it cute the way he tried to play the situation off as though nothing happened.

This scenario played out several times over the course of a few days. The poor kid, Kitsune thought, he had to be fit to burst by now. The very thin thread he hung upon seemed to be holding despite her taunting, as he tried to deny that he was waiting for anyone. "If you've got a message you want to pass along to Naru, I'll be more than happy to deliver the message for you."

Kitsune would have sworn to anyone if they had been in the room with them that they would have heard the distinct sound of something snapping in Keitaro's head. "No, I couldn't possibly let you tell her that!" Keitaro blurted, forgetting himself momentarily. A fatal mistake.

Kitsune giggled rather loudly for Keitaro's liking. "I figured you were trying to get her alone for some reason, but I didn't think you'd be so bold as to confess to her already, Keitaro."

Keitaro's shoulders slumped. He knew when he was defeated, and there was no use trying to deny it. He shuffled to the armchair across from Kitsune and fell into the seat with a muffled thud. "I wasn't going to say that, exactly."

Kitsune shifted in her seat, tucking her legs underneath her bottom. "Why don't you enlighten me, then?"

Keitaro closed his eyes and shook his head slightly from side to side. Kitsune had some otherworldly power that could suck the truth out of hardened mobster. Why she was not working on the police force as an inspector was a mystery to him. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that her radar only reacted to juicy gossip that profited none but her own interests.

"Well?" Kitsune asked, gesturing in a circular motion with her hand, a clear motion that told Keitaro he should get on with it already.

"A date," he replied, reeling in his chair as soon as the words left his mouth with a bitter aftertaste. He was in a world of trouble now, and not because Kitsune would tell anyone about it. The question was, whom would she NOT tell?

"I see," Kitsune replied, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "An indirect attack. Wine her and dine her first, and then tell her how you feel. That's a brilliant idea."

Keitaro, who had been reaching for his wallet to pull out some hush money to give to the fox, leaned forward in his chair upon hearing Kitsune's reply. "Wait, you think it's a good idea after all?"

"Nope," Kitsune replied instantly with an impish grin.

Keitaro's body slumped over. "I knew you'd say that," he muttered.

"Now just isn't the best time, kiddo. She's so wrapped up in her classes right now she doesn't have the time for romantic gestures. She's already shot down three candidates since she started at Toudai."

Keitaro began to feel a bit sick. "So when do you think?"

Kitsune shrugged her shoulders. "Probably in a couple of years."

Keitaro spluttered. "A couple of years? You can't be serious!"

"No, I'm not."

Keitaro slumped over in his chair once again. What he wouldn't give to get a straight answer from his only reliable source of information regarding Naru.

"I don't even know where that girl's head is at right now," Kitsune added, throwing her hands up into the air. "She's not exactly the most up-front person when it comes to her feelings, if you couldn't tell already."

Keitaro nodded absentmindedly. "So you're saying that I shouldn't do it, right?"

"Not necessarily," Kitsune replied, shaking her head slightly. "All I'm saying is that if you decide to give it a shot, don't be surprised if she says no."

Keitaro let out a heavy sigh. The only thing for certain about the whole situation was uncertainty, and that did nothing to quell his fears.

"And who knows, she just might say yes," Kitsune bookended the conversation by leaving Keitaro with a glimmer of hope. She just couldn't help herself. He seemed so sincere that she felt it would be a crime to shoot all of his hopes down like that. If he had asked her out instead of Naru, could she really say no to that hopeful face?

Kitsune picked her magazine back up and quickly opened it to a random page to hide the blush on her face from the ronin sitting across from her. He would not have noticed anyway, as he was staring at the ceiling, lost in thought for several minutes after their conversation ended.

* * *

And think about it he did. For an entire week Keitaro pondered over whether or not to try to ask Naru out. And the more he did, the more Kitsune's words weighed on his mind. It was indeed a tremendous risk. He would be putting their friendship on the line for something more. The last thing he wanted was to have another tense relationship with one of his tenants. Dealing with Motoko was hard enough.

As he usually did when faced with what he considered an impossible choice, he sketched the scenarios and their possible outcomes in his sketchbook. In the first, he drew simple sketches of him asking her out, she says yes, and they live happily ever after. In the second, he asks, she refuses, and he is left all alone. In the third, he does not ask, Naru ends up with a hunk of a man, and he is left alone as in the second scenario. In the fourth and last scenario, Naru ends up asking him out, much to his surprise. He scratched that one out with a few quick strokes of his pencil. Impossible.

Tapping the tip of his pencil eraser against his chin, he pondered over the three possible scenarios, and his only choice quickly became clear to him. If he did nothing, then nothing would come of it. When it came down to it, he hated that possibility more than anything else. If he stuck his neck out there, he had at least a shot at success.

"Why the hell not?" he asked himself. "I've got nothing to lose anyway." His choice made, Keitaro closed his sketchbook, rose from his desk, and walked with purpose from his room.

Unfortunately, Naru was not yet home from class. So he waited patiently in the entryway. So patient in fact, that he had fallen asleep on the sofa, only to be woken by the sound of the front door sliding open, the wooden frame striking against the block with a dull clunk. "I'm home!"

Keitaro snapped upright at the sound of the voice of whom he had been waiting. "Welcome back," he breathed, his voice coarse from being still half-asleep. He fixed his glasses, which lay crooked across his nose and hung off of his left ear, and stole a glance at his wristwatch. Two hours had passed since he last checked. "Wow, was I asleep for that long?"

Naru changed into her indoor slippers and made her way over to the armchair and sat down. "I couldn't tell you. I just got here."

"How was class?" Keitaro asked, oblivious to the fact that this was, perhaps, his best opportunity to speak to Naru alone in weeks, and he was wasting it on meaningless small talk.

"I swear," Naru grumbled as she lay her head back against the backrest and looked up at the ceiling, "It would have been more entertaining to watch paint dry. That old fogey we have as a professor takes twenty minutes to explain the most obvious things. I feel like I'm just wasting my time being there. I could learn better from reading the textbook."

Keitaro cracked a bit of a smile. "I'll bet your read the text before the lecture anyway, didn't you?"

"Isn't that what good students are supposed to do, anyway?" Naru replied matter-of-factly.

Keitaro laughed softly. At least some things about her had not changed, he thought. "I guess so. I probably wouldn't have read it beforehand."

If time did heal all wounds, for Naru at least, that one was still sore. "I'm sorry."

"Really, you don't need to apologize. It wasn't your fault I didn't make it."

"Even still, I was the one tutoring you. Of course I'm going to feel responsible."

Keitaro chuckled. "To be fair, Narusegawa, you weren't exactly serious about tutoring me."

Naru scowled. "You trying to pick a fight with me?"

Keitaro shook his head vigorously. "No! I'm just saying that you had to focus on yourself first. And I'm glad, because I would have felt terrible if I had interfered with your studying so much that you ended up failing with me, or worse, instead of me."

Naru's expression softened instantly. With the shoe firmly on the other foot, she could understand Keitaro's feelings. If the situation were reversed, if she were the one with the ridiculously low marks (perish the thought), and caused someone sure to pass with flying colors to fail, she would likely never be able to forgive herself. In this, she and Keitaro were kindred spirits.

"So don't beat yourself up over it anymore, alright?"

Naru smiled weakly at her landlord. "I'll try not to. But still, it would have been nice if both of us had made it."

"I know," Keitaro said quietly. Time had yet to fully close that wound for him as well.

In an effort to dispel the depressing air about them, Naru slapped her thighs with her open hands. "So anyway, have you given any thought about what you want to do now? You're going to try for Toudai again, right?"

Scratching at his cheek with his index finger, Keitaro replied with a nervous chuckle, "Actually, I haven't put much thought into it at all. I don't have any idea what I'm going to do now."

Naru looked at the ronin as though a small alien burst from his mouth and started dancing on his head. "You haven't thought about it at all? That's just crazy!"

"You're probably right," Keitaro replied, nodding his head. "But I talked to Kitsune a while back and she made some good points. I've been chasing what has turned out so far to be an impossible dream for most of my life, and I deserve a break. And as much as it pains me to admit it, I've actually enjoyed not worrying over every little moment not spent with my head in a book these last few months."

Naru turned pensive for a moment before replying. "I'll give you that. You can be a hard worker when push comes to shove. But are you sure you should really be taking to heart advice on life from someone like Kitsune? I shouldn't need to tell you that she's not the most responsible person in the world."

Keitaro nodded his head and smiled. "That's the point."

Naru's eyebrow twitched as she tilted her head to one side. "Huh?"

"I've been responsible for everything pretty much my whole life. For just a little while, I've been able to let go of all of the baggage I've been lugging around with me all these years and just be myself. Don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean I'm shirking my responsibilities around the inn. It's just been nice not spending every waking moment thinking about someone whose name and face I can't even remember."

Naru grinned at the man. "I'm impressed, Keitaro. You're a lot more interesting a guy than I would have given you credit for. Well, whatever makes you happy I suppose. I just hope you're still giving your future a little bit of thought."

"I will," he promised.

Naru stood up and smoothed out her skirt. "I'm gonna go take a bath now. Don't get any funny ideas," she pointed at Keitaro threateningly. Almost as an aside, she added before walking away, "This was kind of nice. We should talk like this again sometime."

Keitaro watched the young woman walk up the stairs towards her room, a stupid grin playing across his face. "She actually wants to talk to me? Ah…I'm so happy right now I could just…hold on a minute." His smile vanished in the blink of an eye as he suddenly recalled the reason he had been sitting there waiting for her in the first place.

Jumping out of his chair, he managed one step towards the stairs before he noticed something flying towards him out of the corner of his eye. He had no time to react as the foot of the resident scientist, Su Kaolla, slammed with full force against his cheek, sending him tumbling over the back of the sofa he had just been sitting on.

"Goooooooooood afternoooooooooooooooon, Keitaro!" Su greeted the ronin with a sugary voice that belied the violence she had just committed against him. If it was true that when a girl likes a boy she tends to hit him playfully, than Su Kaolla liked Keitaro Urashima so much it was dangerous.

"W-welcome home…Su-chan," Keitaro replied hoarsely, squinting at the three blurry Su's squatting over his prone body with toothy grins. "Perfect timing, as usual, I see."

"Heehee," Su giggled, excited about the latest test she planned to perform using the hapless Keitaro as a guinea pig. "I need some help with something, Keitaros."

"Of course you do," Keitaro replied as he slowly slinked to a seated position as he regained his bearings. There was no use trying to escape the clutches of this foreigner once she had sunk her teeth into her prey. Of all people, Keitaro was fully aware of this. "I'd be more than happy to help."

Though the sarcasm dripping from Keitaro's voice could not possibly be overstated, the notion that Keitaro did not, in fact, wish to participate as a human meat shield in Su's latest maniacal machination was completely lost on the blond girl. "Woohoo!" she exclaimed in joy and, grabbing at his hand with freakish strength, pulled him to his feet and ran up the stairs to her room with her favorite person in the whole world in tow.

* * *

Three hours later, battered and bruised, Keitaro nursed his sore shoulder with a bag of ice wrapped with a dishtowel, and his empty stomach with the leftovers of Shinobu's recently prepared dinner. He verbally cursed his rotten luck, as it was his favorite dish, though it was only good freshly made. Reheating the dish sapped the life out of the meal, much like Su had almost quite literally sucked the life out of him with her latest invention.

Pawing at the rice in the bowl in front of him with his chopsticks, he clucked his tongue for the fifth time since he sat down at the dining room table. With a heavy sigh, he set the chopsticks down across the rim of the bowl, giving up at last. "Thanks for the meal," he whispered, though there was no one else in the room.

As was usual for the ronin when he went about his daily chores, he used the time in which he cleaned the dishes he had used for his half-eaten meal to think. What to do about Narusegawa? After missing a golden opportunity this past afternoon, how long would he need to wait before fortune smiled upon him in such a manner once more? If he were to ask her out on a date, and if, by some small chance, she agreed, would it be because she accepted his feelings? Or would she simply acquiesce out of pity?

Keitaro reached across the sink and turned off the water after rinsing his rice bowl one last time for good measure and placed the porcelain dish on the towel next to the sink for drying. After pulling a clean dishtowel from the drawer next to the sink, he heard the door behind him squeak open.

Motoko paused in the doorway for a breath when Keitaro's eyes met her own. Keitaro noticed the beads of sweat forming on her brow. She must have just finished her evening exercises, Keitaro thought.

"Oh, it's you," Motoko said coolly.

Keitaro's forced smile wilted under the frigidity of the kendo-ka's greeting. He turned his attention back onto his task at hand when she glowered at him as if to say, "What the hell are you looking at?"

Making a half-hearted attempt to ignore the looming presence behind him, he kept his eyes closed as he dried off a plate, listening to Motoko's slippers sliding across the hardwood floor with every step she took as she poured herself a glass of juice from the fridge and made her way out the same way she entered.

When the door to the living room clicked shut behind him, Keitaro released the breath he did not realize he was holding. Looking down at his hands, he realized he had been drying the same plate for over a minute. It was likely completely dry before Motoko had even opened the refrigerator door. "I really am an idiot," he said, shaking his head as he placed the pristine plate back into the cabinet with the others.

Kitsune's words suddenly rang between the young man's ears as he reached out towards the next dish.

_"Don't worry so much."_

_ "Why don't you do what you want to for once?"_

_ "Shake things up a bit."_

He laughed at himself. All this time, he had thought he was doing his best to live up to that advice, and yet, he just realized, he had done nothing of the sort. He was wasting these precious days away. Naught would be changed until he made it happen himself. "Yeah, I really am an idiot, aren't I?" he asked himself.

Tossing the damp dishtowel over the rest of the dishes he had yet to finish drying, Keitaro walked out of the kitchen with a resolve he had never felt before in his young adult life. He made his way towards the stairs, pausing briefly to say to Motoko, who was sitting on the lounge chair drinking her juice, "My name is Keitaro. Keitaro Urashima. In the future, I'd like you to refer to me by my name, Motoko-chan."

Motoko's jaw might have hit the floor had it been able. The shock to her system was too much, and she could not formulate a suitable reply for the man before his feet vanished from sight up the staircase. Dumbfounded, she turned her head towards Kitsune, who had a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

"I think you just got told, girlfriend," Kitsune said.

Keitaro rapped his fist on the door of room 304 repeatedly. "Narusegawa, are you in?" he called out.

"Hold on a second," he heard Naru cry out from inside the room. Though his heart was beating so fast it might explode from his chest at any moment, Keitaro felt oddly calm as he waited patiently outside Naru's room.

A silhouette approached the door, opened it a crack, and Naru's head appeared through the partially opened portal. "What is it? I've got a lot of homework to finish for my morning classes tomorrow."

"Narusegawa, no…Naru," Keitaro began, using the girl's given name for the first time since they had first met.

"Please go out with me."

* * *

A/N: Thanks to everyone still sticking around for this story. From here on, shit gets real. Leave a review and tell me what you think. Comments, critique, flames are all welcome. C


	4. Chapter 3

Draw With Me

Chapter 3

Naru's eyes narrowed to slits. "I just said I don't have time to be talking to you much less going out right now. Good night, Keitaro."

Keitaro figured that she wouldn't take him seriously. Not that he could blame her. He never thought himself capable of confessing so openly; not before tonight.

As Naru retracted her head back through the shoji, Keitaro reached out and grabbed at the door before she could shut it. With a sharp yank, he pulled the door open, startling the young woman opposite the portal. "What the hell's gotten into you?" Naru barked, taking a few cautious steps away from the man.

Naru looked like she was about to punch his lights out, but Keitaro didn't care. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He doubted he would be able to summon this type of courage again. He pressed onward, stepping into Naru's room. "You don't understand," he said. "I like you. And I want you to go out with me; on a date."

She must have thought him crazy. He couldn't believe his own ears, either. After all this time, making such a daring move? It was the exact opposite of what Keitaro would normally do. There was no way to take it back now. He could only hope that Naru gave her reply before panic overwhelmed him and he did something even worse out of hysteria.

"Um…Naru?"

Naru stood frozen in the same position, looking much like a wax figure of her own personage. Keitaro couldn't even be certain if she was breathing. He snapped his fingers in front of her face, she blinked in response, and then shook her head like she had just woken from a vivid daydream. "I, um…well, I…aren't you standing a bit too close?"

He wasn't sure when it happened, but Keitaro somehow found himself standing no more than a foot away from the shell-shocked Naru, and he was leaning towards her so much that she was craning her head away to keep from butting their foreheads together. "Oh, sorry," he said and stepped away to a more reasonable distance.

"Look, I, uh…don't have the time for this right now," Naru managed to say, gesturing at the table sitting in the middle of the room with a tremendous pile of opened textbooks, half-filled notebooks and index cards stacked atop it. "Can you please leave now?"

Keitaro, expecting to get punched halfway to Kingdom Come, hesitated when Naru asked him politely to leave her room. "I'm sorry, what?" he asked.

"I asked you to please leave my room. I have a lot of work to do, and there's no time for me to think about anything else right now. So, please…"

Keitaro spent many hours mulling over the possible outcomes of this venture, but he had never considered this possibility. Due to this unexpected turn of events, he complied with Naru's request without demanding she answer one way or the other.

After stepping out, he turned to look at Naru one last time. She averted her eyes, and slowly slid the door shut. He didn't know what to think. What was with the expression on her face? He had never seen that look on her face before in the half-year they had spent under the same roof. Was she sad? Worried? Overwhelmed?

Nothing was certain for Keitaro that night except uncertainty.

* * *

The sound of two-hundred people standing in unison caused the drowsy young woman to start, and she bolted upright, staring with empty eyes into space. She looked to either side; everyone was packing their materials and leaving the classroom. Must have fallen asleep, she thought. She looked down at her note pad and smirked. Her notes trailed off from their normal straight line down one side of the page, becoming distorted until the last word, a half-finished kanji, had a straight line trail from it off the page.

"Narusegawa-san?" the instructor called out from the pit below.

Naru looked up at the middle-aged instructor, who was waving two fingers in her direction, asking her to come down and speak with him. Gathering her things, she stood and approached her professor, bobbing and weaving through the traffic of students making their way out of the class.

"I still do not have your essay, Narusegawa-san," the instructor said, craning his neck down to look at her over his bifocals.

Naru shifted her weight from one leg to the other. "Yes, sir, I know."

"This isn't like you. I've come to expect having your work in my hands first among all my students."

"It's almost done, I've just," she began to explain.

The professor held up a hand. "I'm not interested in excuses, Narusegawa-san. I'm interested in results. I'm afraid that if I do not have your essay in-hand by this time tomorrow, I'm going to give you a zero on this assignment."

"That's not going to be necessary, Professor."

"Be sure that it doesn't. This is worth a significant portion of your total grade for this class. I don't know if you're having personal issues or what, but you need to get whatever is going on with you sorted out as soon as possible. You can't allow this to affect your work here."

"I-I understand."

Naru walked out of the class feeling as though she had just been punched in the stomach. It was the first time she had ever been admonished for lack of effort in her whole life. It wasn't her fault though. That nincompoop barged in on her last night and spouted a bunch of nonsense. She couldn't concentrate on anything the remainder of the night. If not for him, the paper would have been done and she wouldn't have been embarrassed in front of the professor.

On her way to her next class, lost in thought about what type of punishment she was going to dole out onto that wretch of a man, a tug on her arm snapped her from blissful thoughts of pounding her landlord into oblivion. Looking up at the person who unceremoniously grabbed her, her face colored over.

"Hey, Naru-chan."

"S-S-Seta-sensei!" The way he smiled at her, with his bright white teeth and scraggly facial hair, made her weak in the knees. She never could figure out exactly what it was about him that attracted her. He wasn't particularly attractive, nor was he exceptionally smart. She just couldn't help herself.

"Off to your next class?" Seta asked the dumbstruck young woman.

"Uuuuuuuh wh-what?"

"Can you spare a few minutes?"

"Uh, yeah, sure, I guess," Naru said, a wide grin playing across her face as she followed behind the professor.

Seta poured warm tea from a nondescript tea kettle sitting on his desk into two coffee cups. Pulling a heavy draw from his own cup, he slid the second across the desk towards the fidgeting girl sitting opposite him.

With shaking hands, Naru picked up the cup and took a small sip of the bitter drink, somehow avoiding pouring its contents onto her skirt.

"I hope Wakamoto-sensei didn't give you a hard time about your paper," Seta began.

Naru's eyes widened and she lowered her drink from her lips. "H-how did you know about that?" she asked after a hard swallow.

Seta smiled, twirling a pen between two fingers with his free hand. "I like to keep track of my former students. Make sure they are keeping up with things. I wouldn't worry too much about him, though. He likes to talk big, but he's a creampuff to the core. You won't get a zero on that paper."

Naru perked up upon hearing this information. "That's good to know. Thanks."

"But that doesn't mean you should put it off. You still need to finish it as soon as you can."

"Yes, sir."

A soft laugh passed Seta's lips. "No need for such formalities. Just call me Seta, will you?"

Naru felt like her face was on fire. "O-okay, Seta-san."

Seta leaned back in his leather chair, and the reclining joint squeaked loudly under his weight. "I've never heard of you being late with an assignment, Naru-chan. Is there something wrong?"

Naru waved a hand in front of her face and shook her head slightly as she raised her cup to her lips again. "Oh, it's nothing big."

"Boy trouble, perhaps?"

Naru nearly aspirated the rest of her tea. A coughing fit overwhelmed her, and Seta pulled a handkerchief from his white jacket pocket and passed it to the young woman. "It's really nothing like that at all," she said after calming down. Damn him, she thought. Why is he so aloof about some things and so astute about others?

"Well, whatever the issue, if there's anything I can do to help, be sure you let me know, alright?"

"R-really?"

"Of course," Seta replied matter-of-factly with that brilliant smile that never failed to make Naru's heart to skip a beat. "You may not be in any of my classes, but you'll always be my student."

"Okay, then. I'll take you up on that offer," Naru said.

Checking his wristwatch, Seta sat up in his chair. "You'd better get going. Let me know if Arisato-sensei gives you a hard time about being late. I'll put him in his place for you."

Naru stood and bowed deeply at the waist. "Thank you very much."

"Enough with the formalities, Naru-chan. Let's keep it casual, alright?"

"O-okay then. Well, I'll see you around." Naru waved and left Seta's office. After closing the door, she leaned against the wall to keep from swooning, her heart pounding in her chest with such force she could hear it thumping in her ears in the silent hallway. Everything she had hoped for these many years was coming to pass. Unable able to contain her excitement, she skipped towards her next class, and nothing could wipe the silly grin from her face.

* * *

Back at Hinata Sou, there was quite a contrast in the state of mind of the owner of the place compared to the freshman Toudaisei. Keitaro, in a constant state of worry, paced around the building for hours at a time. When Shinobu saw his head peek from the staircase onto the roof platform where she was doing laundry for the third time in twenty minutes, she called out to him.

"Um, Urashima-sempai, is something wrong?"

Keitaro looked up at the young lady sitting on the railing blankly for a moment, and then looked around. "What?" he asked. He became so wrapped in his thoughts that he managed to walk across the entire inn without noticing.

"I asked if there was something wrong. You're walking around like you're looking for something."

Though the last person he wanted to burden his problems with was the youngest of his tenants, Keitaro was desperate for someone to talk to. Aunt Haruka was in town getting supplies for the teahouse, and Kitsune was MIA. "Well, it's nothing I'm going to be able to find by walking around. I'm just thinking."

"What about?" Shinobu asked as Keitaro took a seat on the railing next to her.

Keitaro sighed heavily, and decided to take things in a roundabout manner. "Have you ever been afraid to do something and you finally build up the courage to do it only to find that it might have been a mistake?"

Shinobu smiled innocently. "No, not really."

"Oh," Keitaro replied, laughing at himself. "I guess you wouldn't have, huh?"

"I wish I did, though," Shinobu said, looking down at the pink slippers on her feet. "Have the courage to do something I was afraid to do, that is."

"Oh, really? Like what?"

Shinobu lowered her head so low her chin nearly rested against her collarbones. "Nothing in particular, really."

"But still, what if you regretted it afterward? Would you still do it if you knew it would only end badly?" Keitaro asked.

"I don't think I would regret it."

"You can still say that knowing that it was a mistake?"

The girl looked at the bespectacled man gazing at her inquisitively. "Once it's done, there's no way to take it back. Whatever happens happens. The only thing you can do is accept the consequences."

"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, huh?"

"That's a pretty cliché way of saying it. It's more like you can only control your own actions. You can't really help what other people do, so there's no point in dwelling on stuff you can't control."

Keitaro's eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. "Wow, I guess I never thought about it like that before. You're pretty wise for your age, you know that?"

Shinobu's lips curled upward slightly as she turned her head to the side. "If you say so."

Giving it a moment of thought, Keitaro realized it was probably her parents' divorce that gave Shinobu wisdom beyond her years. But there was no need to bring that up now. The wound was likely still fresh for the teenager.

Instead, Keitaro stood from the railing. "I think that was just what I needed to hear. Thanks a lot, Shinobu-chan!"

"Of course. Thanks for keeping me company for a little while."

After taking a few steps towards the staircase, he turned on his heels. "Oh, yeah, one more thing."

Shinobu perked up, giving Keitaro her undivided attention.

"If you ever want to talk, and not just about your homework, don't hesitate to ask, okay?"

A radiant smile flashed across Shinobu's face. "Sure!"

Though Keitaro understood that Shinobu told him not to allow his current situation to run his life, after a day passed, then another, and then another week rolled by without even remote contact with the subject of his confession, doubt and worry wormed their way back into his mind and his heart. The more passionate part of him wanted to storm into her room and demand an answer. A sure fire way to be murdered, to be sure. Better to remain patient and let her come to him. He had fulfilled his obligation. The onerous was on her to give him a response. He didn't want to appear desperate, though reality belied his façade.

What was she waiting for? Midterms weren't for another two months. Her course load, though ambitious for a freshman, paled in comparison to the amount of studying she did in a given day prior to the entrance exams. Desperate for answers, there was but one person he could approach with this subject. Later that afternoon, on the second floor veranda, while the household was otherwise empty, Keitaro told his story to Naru's best friend.

"You said what, now?"

"I told her how I felt," Keitaro repeated himself for Kitsune's sake.

"Wow," Kitsune leaned back against the worn backing of her seat's cushion, digesting Keitaro's story. "This is huge news."

"Yeah, I know. I even surprised myself."

"How long ago was this again?"

"Last week."

"And she hasn't said anything to you since."

Keitaro leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and shook his head. "I haven't seen hide or hair of her. It's starting to drive me nuts."

"I can imagine," Kitsune replied. Something was off about this story, however. She had talked to Naru every day in the last two weeks about all sorts of different things, but Keitaro never came up as topic of discussion. Why didn't Naru tell her about this? As her best friend, she should have been the first to know.

"What's the matter, Kitsune?"

Keitaro's question pulled the fox from her thoughts. "Oh, nothing." A certain man had come up in their recent conversations, but Kitsune did not feel the need to bring him up in front of Keitaro. But she certainly felt compelled to bring Keitaro up in front of Naru. "Tell you what, kiddo. I'll ask her for you, how about that?"

"What?" Keitaro sat up in his chair. "I don't know about that, Kitsune. I'm not sure that's such a great idea."

Kitsune waved his worries off with a flick of her wrist. "Don't worry about it. I'm just gonna find out whether or not she's still sitting on the fence, that's all."

Keitaro struggled with the idea, but decided this way would be the lesser of two evils. "All right. I'll leave it to you, then."

After another few minutes of small talk and idle banter, Keitaro skipped off looking much merrier than when he first approached Kitsune to talk. She frowned as she watched him leave. Something wasn't right about all of this and, as curious as she was, she had a sinking suspicion she was not going to like what she would learn.


End file.
